I don’t know how much cocaine they stuffed in Chris Harrison’s suitcase or if they killed one of his old managers who was still looking for a pay day, but the Panama Tourism Authority really got their money’s worth. So much so that they got ANOTHER MAP into the intro showing exactly where Panama City, Panama is. It’s like the canal is stalking you, beckoning you to explore it’s murky deep all the while finding your own soulmate on a journey to find love one helicopter at a time in a place that is “shockingly metropolitan”.

Enough. This is time for the Hometown Throwdown. That’s right. The Hunger Games are down to six partially-to-totally unstable women vying for a chance to be eventually dumped in a winery by an international tennis star who also starred in Garden State. Be still our beating hearts.

Our journey to find love transitions away from one Latin American tourism board to another, as Beyan’s hair is put to another humidity test in helicopter-filled Belize. On a scale of one to ten, Belize Navidad. What better place to find love than in a place only your super rich asshole friend has been to because after hitting everything in the Caribbean from Turks & Caicos to Kitts & Nevis, after posing in every European plaza from Italy to Bratislava, their fucking family went to Belize to hold that shit over your head.

If you are that girl and you are reading this, none of the people around you like you and they are rooting for you to fail. Kind of like Swimsuit Issues, who you should totally look up. She’s in Venice somewhere not parlaying her modeling career into an acting gig. Although with all the crazy weird faces she makes, she should totally be a head gear model.

While Ben was reading the pamphlet on Belize (written in the early 90s around the time Cool Runnings came out), the girls were flying in on a small plane and landing at an airport with a sign about selling hyperbaric chambers. Unless this is a hotbed of UFC training, that is sketchy as fuck. That’s sketchier than waking up and finding Deadmau5 in his glowing mask twisting your toes and pretending they are records.

Beyan was tripping out hard from the get go. If you watch movies, you know when a Southern girl snaps it’s some serious shit. We’re all looking forward to that after the fantasy suite when Swimsuit Issues finally makes ZBOW submit. Contagion made me laugh when she described the remaining contestants as four other girls and a shark. Amazing producing considering there were sharks later in the episode. Emmy for Best Fifteen Week Suicide Inducer is definitely going to ABC this year.

Harrison showed up and said things in Belize are different. He was referencing the 3 Juan on Juan dates with no roses, but what he really meant is that one time his assistant bought him some heroin by the docks in San Pedro and didn’t know it was customary to tip 30% if you are foreign and he’s spent the last 7 seasons writing to the kid’s parents and claiming he got “super mono” from on of the contestants. Shit. I just let the cat out of the bag. Run Chris. XOXO, Lost Angeles.

Courtney read the first date card which was awesome because now I know she can read. War Horse got the first date and immediately went to the bathroom and confused her skin tone for a much darker skinned girl. She looks like she is wearing a Mission Impossible mask. Those aren’t real dimples, it’s the latex stretching.

Side note, Sally Field gets way less wonky when she cries. She’s a pretty crier, which sucks because ten years into marriage a night of spicing things up consists of making her dress up real nice, getting a sitter, taking her to a nice restaurant and the once you get to the hotel room, verbally abusing her until she cries and you get turned on. I mean, I get it, but I’m not Chris Brown. #notforme also #Grammys2012.

The girls all got a fresh coat of spray tan, which was exciting and Contagion kept talking about cheesecake, which I’m pretty sure she was going to spend the entire ride home from Belize eating by the fistful. She’s funny though and probably too smart for this show, unlike me who is writing about it and you, who is so into it you are reading about watching it. Just kidding, I get why you read it. I’m so good with words, when I play Scrabble, birds land on my arms and painters come out of the bushes to interpret me. #hypermodest

War Horse got on the first date which was on a HELICOPTER, but I was distracted thinking about horses because I kept thinking about Luck on HBO and if it sucks or if it is awesome. Ben calls her (and everyone else) an incredible woman, which is clearly a pre-req for television reality polygamist dating.

Anyway, to conquer her fear of heights (she saw Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken in the early 90s and is still fucked up from it), Ben takes her to this big innuendo of a hole and they are going to get half naked and dive into it. One a scale of one to ten, they want you to think about sex. #happyvday

Proving once and for all that kissing Ben is an FDA approved treatment for the fear of heights, Ben makes out with War Horse, they jump out of a helicopter (awesometown) and then make out again in the big hole. They kept saying “leap of faith” and I kept hitting myself in the face with my wife’s Kindle until she found me bleeding and I totally cracked it ruined the final ten pages of Mockingjay.

At the sexy night date, War Horse said that her not being able to take her eyes off Ben really said a lot about how she was feeling, which was “horny”. Also, like a horse, she was probably wearing blinders. #puntastic

Then they wrote some whack poem slash drawing and put it in a bottle and littered up a third worldish country. Basically it was like texting in person instead of talking. It’s hard to lie to a horse, so I get it Ben. He tells her he promises to be truthful which was code for “when I dump you I will be specific and probably scar you for life”.

Back at the hen house, Contagion gets the Juan on Juan and Swimsuit Issues makes weird faces, cries, goes cross eyed a few times, complains, creates enemies of the entire country and then formulates her plan to dominate the amateur hour that is her competition. I admit she is really getting hard to watch and listen to, but I’m not sure if it’s not like the same thing as when a player on the other team is just in the zone killing the home team. She’s certainly the Andrew Luck of Bachelor prospects (and they have equally shiny foreheads).

Contagion’s date comes and Ben shows up. For being a disease researcher she sure missed the symptoms Swimsuit Issues suffers from. Clear case of UTD. Ugly Tanktop Disease. Seriously, did she rob my fat neighbor growing up? She dresses like she spent the last month at Coachella pretending to know who Skrillex is.

On the date, Ben had his signature day-glo pants on to flag down the plane Contagion rode out to meet him on. They did shit like “walk around” and “vaguely dance” in Belize and the producers totally confused the “Latin music” for the “Africa music” and it made me happy. I got depressed when she was like “it feels like I’m on vacation with my boyfriend” and I wondered how many girls out there long for something so simple. I got depressed and ate cheesecake in bed crying in honor of Contagion and trying not to wake up my wife. Good thing I sprang for the Tempurpedic. You can wrestle a warthog on the bed without waking her.

They went lobster diving which was “spontaneous” except for the fact that producers decided they wanted to get Contagion in a bikini. She did great though and I kept thinking of the message this sends America. A smart, attractive girl was definitely going to lose to a more boring, more attractive in makeup girl. It’s like a victory for night clubs.

Back at home, Swimsuit Issues was REALLY TRIPPING and getting shiny in the face and Beyan called her something like the “shittiest piece of a person” and I was trying to figure that out while Swimsuit got so insecure she said if Ben blah blah she won’t accept a rose. She was prepping her master plan.

On her date the next day, Ben had a day glo t-shirt going. I feel like they keep his wardrobe in a tinted glass trunk. Courtney started telling him right away that their spark had fizzled and that she had that happen in her past. Wow, that is so not model of her… Sigh.

She basically alternates between looking bored when he talks and then when he stops, she says that she is losing interest, which puts ZBOW into full on dive on the grenade mode. He basically tells her he wants to take her home to meet his family and the hunter becomes the hunted. She is a fucking warrior dude. Anyone who can just pick up a tarantula and not give a shit probably at one point shot someone in cold blood. It’s bad ass.

The night date was meh except for when Ben said something about time and space and soulmates on top of a temple and she was like “no one’s ever said that to me before”. No shit, model. How many temples in Belize have you been on top of? Then she said her job modeling was constantly about pleasing everyone, which in my experience with models is total bullshit. Basically, everyone has to please the model until they get the shot and they are mad cranky from “not eating”.

Then she said basically all her friends are dudes, which Ben should know better. Ben, I love you bro. This is the kiss of death. All my friends are guys is code for I hang out with people I’ve slept with or are waiting for you to die so I can try to get grief sex. I am looking out for you, but all of this already happened. I feel like the Time Traveler’s Wife. The thing is that when a girl has lots of friends that are girls, that means she is capable of putting up with the problems of others (just listen to twelve girls talk sometime). This is key with a wife. In fairness to you, you have won a lot of Grand Slams in tennis and I’m pretty sure you aren’t taking this too seriously save the fantasy suite selection. March Madness for you is filling out a bracket of potential one-night-stands. Cheers!

The next date can be glossed over. Dragon Tattooth shaved her pits in the sink while Sally Field shaved her legs in the shower at 4:30AM when Ben broke in to take them swimming with sharks. War Horse was glad she slept with a shirt on and that pretty much got her the rose.

They were dropping fish guts in the ocean in “shark alley” to get these sharks to roll up or “bay-ting” them as Tattooth said. All these girls were normal (save the effect the rising humidity had on Beyan’s hair) and Beyan got the rose, they all got to make out and then they threw Swimsuit Issues under the bus, not realizing Ben is riding a love hovercraft and it would do no good. Get it? You don’t die when you get thrown…under a…hovercraft.

Fuck my life.

The cocktail party showed off the editor’s skills as they seemingly could not find one thing Courtney said that didn’t sound like a ten year old after blowing lines of Pixie Stix and spinning in a circle with a bucket on her head. I was glad they cut it short.

ZBOW had to take her aside to get some questions answered, but they ended up being questions like “do you still look hot off the big wooden stage” and “are you doing okay”.

Contagion got vaccinated. Tattooth got pulled. Four remain. Hometown dates are next. My second favorite date (I prefer the fantasy suite and for those of you who haven’t read my recaps on them, you will understand life more afterwards).

Who’s stoked to see what each girl’s parents’ metabolisms are like?

Finally, shout out to my friends and readers in Delta Gamma at USC who sent this awesome picture in. It looks like they are having some private rose ceremony. I hope whoever got kicked off was at least walked out, unlike Tattooth and Contagion who might as well have been dropped down a garbage chute. Either way, totally appreciate the effort and I am looking forward to speaking at your event!

And speaking of speaking… If you want to see me talk about leadership, ethics, the blog, football and the bachelor (and ask questions), here’s the flyer:

Now go to uscdg.com and rsvp already. I’ll see you in the thunderdome.

7 responses to “Bachelor Recap: Week Seven”

chris harrison spoke to my annenberg journalism class last night while the bachelor was going on, which was confusing. he talked about drugs a lot (he “doesn’t condone them”), his kids and wife, and how he’s really rich. seemed like an okay guy though, plus he bought some of us chick fil a after class, which was cool.

amazing recap. your blog makes watching the bachelor actually worthwhile. so at first i was a little heartbroken to see emily go because obviously she’s the only worthwhile girl there but then was happy because as much as you’re looking out for beyan because of the whole your wifes besties with his sister thing, he’s sort of boring (besides his love of helicopters) tool. so if we learned anything this week its that emily is better off for not having to be proposed to by ben. go team. cant wait till next weeks recap

I don’t want to over-sell it, but this is the best. blog. ever. In a word (made up/overused by women of my generation), it’s “amazingck”. I stopped watching The Bachelor, and you brought me back (thanks). ABC is cutting you a check, right? They need to be. Do you think you could come up to San Francisco and do a speaking event for those of us that can’t get to LA? You could make it the same week you come up to throw back whiskey and catch a Giants game with ZBOW (if I offer **Giants seats can I tag along?). Thanks for giving me a reason to turn on my computer at work every Tuesday morning.
**No, these seats would not be better than the seats you two could score.

I’d be down to speak. Let me know if you could bring out the SF contingency and as long as all I need to do is show up, talk and cash a check, I can make it happen. After all, I’m a handsome mercenary. As for baseball or whiskey or a polite hello, that is usually gratis if time permits haha.